


Inscribed with letters of woe

by keeptheearthbelow



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: F/M, Reference to character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-03
Updated: 2014-04-03
Packaged: 2018-01-18 02:16:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1411252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keeptheearthbelow/pseuds/keeptheearthbelow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the wake of loss, new life arises. Written for the Prompts in Panem challenge "The Language of Flowers" for hyacinth = fertility, but the title is from a translation of the myth of Hyacinthus.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Inscribed with letters of woe

**Author's Note:**

> This is an outtake/expanded scene in the final chapter of my post-MJ story Regrowth. If you haven't read it, this does have a spoiler.

_The task of clearing Haymitch's house ends up with Peeta and me, mostly — others are willing to help clean but we should be the ones to go through his belongings. Little of it is of interest, or in a condition worth saving, though we're careful looking through it all. But after a couple days I find a small bound journal buried in a kitchen drawer. It begins with the heading “51” and two names._

_He kept notes assiduously at the start, pages and pages on the tributes' strengths and weaknesses, what they did wrong or right, what Haymitch himself did wrong or right as their mentor. The first couple years, they were kids who'd been his classmates in school. His notes from after each year's Games ended are markedly more difficult to read than those written during. The notes also get shorter over the years — always a number and two names, but much less after that, and ever more bitter._

_“74: Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark. Fools, but they can fight.” Then, “Rule change.” Then, “At what cost.”_

_“75” is written in, but has nothing following it. Perhaps he felt there was nothing that he hadn't already said. There's just a smear of ink as if he couldn't keep hold of the pen._

_I show the book to Peeta, but he is literally unable to read it. He tries a couple of times, and it makes him ill._

↔

The second time he tries to look at the book of the dead, it's after asking me for it and taking some slow breaths. As opposed to the first time, when I handed it to him in Haymitch's kitchen with no more warning than, “You should see this.” But he doesn't even manage to turn a page this time. He shoves it away from him, pale and shuddering and choking.

After giving him a moment on his own I realize there's no point treating this like it's a flashback, so I go over and wrap my arms around him. We rock against each other, clinging, and eventually I maneuver us down the hall into the bedroom. I mainly have the idea of curling up with him and resting, which we do, only after pulling each other's clothes off and making love. It's full of grief and devotion and steadfastness at the same time. I wonder if I'll ever stop being surprised at the variety in how it can feel. I wonder if he has noticed differences in my body yet. We lie in bed until sunset. It arrives so much earlier, these nights at the end of August. 

As the orange light fades, he starts untangling my hair from around his fingers. “I should go punch down that sponge. It's probably risen out of the bowl by now.”

We clean up and dress. While he's downstairs, I go back into the other room and pick up the book. Somebody needs to keep it. Throwing it away would be like throwing those tributes away. Throwing away this side of Haymitch. 

But there's nobody else I can really ask to take it. So I wrap it up and squirrel it away in the closet with my things that I have saved over the years. Peeta isn't going to come across it unexpectedly. Well, he might if I die first, someday, and he has to go through my belongings. I don't usually think like that, but losing Haymitch has caused some funny thoughts to go across my mind.

Then I remember that it isn't going to be just Peeta and me anymore. It seems morbid but it's such a reassurance, as I'm sitting there on my closet floor, to realize that as long as we don't completely screw up being parents, then Peeta will have our son or daughter in his life if he ever has to go on without me. And I will have the same if I ever have to go on without him. 

I touch my fingertips to the slick fabric of a parachute that's wrapped around a spile and a locket. I should tell him. I get to my feet and go downstairs.

Peeta is sitting on the kitchen bench, still staring into the bowl of bread dough, though he must have punched it down already because it isn't overflowing. His head snaps up as I come in. “Hey, beautiful.”

“Hey.” I sit on the bench too, mirroring him with one leg on either side, the bread bowl between us. “What are you thinking about?”

He hesitates, then blurts, “I couldn't have mentored.” I don't know what to say, and he continues, “I remember talking to Haymitch about it a lot. Before the … before the Quarter Quell was announced. I remember trying to get prepared to do it. I don't know what I was thinking.”

I know I ignored the prospect as much as possible. I can't imagine I would have been any help to anyone. “We lived in a different world then. It didn't seem —” I hunt around for words — “beyond all reason.”

He nods. I think he's still calming down from earlier. “I would like to show them the respect of reading the journal, you know. I don't just mean the kids before us. I'd like to show Haymitch that respect, too.”

He doesn't even know there's an entry for us. 

“But I can't read it.” His voice is quiet.

After a minute, I think to say, “He'd be really pissed at us for reading it.”

Peeta finally looks at me. He breaks into a smile, then a low laugh. “Yeah. Okay. I'll miss him.”

“Me too.”

He hesitates again. “It sounds dumb, but — I feel like we haven't had to be adults before. Well, I shouldn't speak for you. But Haymitch kind of stepped in where my parents would have been, you know? And he helped me deal with a lot of this. It's going to be strange to go without that help, even though I didn't need it so often anymore.” He smiles a little. “Maybe that doesn't make sense.”

“No, it does.” 

He leans across the bread and draws me in for a kiss, relaxed, grateful. Then drapes a kitchen towel over the bowl and moves it to the counter. “Should we make supper?”

“Well — about that.” He turns back to me. “About being adults now.” My palms are starting to sweat.

He snorts. “Sorry. I mean, we have a house, and incomes. And sex, and about three gray hairs. So what else would I think we are?”

I hear myself say, “I'm pregnant.”

I'm so nervous that I'm not really sure how long the silence is afterwards. He has gone perfectly still, the slight smile frozen in place. He looks down, then across the kitchen, then back at me. “Not for very long, I suppose.”

“Well —” I can't figure out what to tell him first. “March doesn't seem very far away. I think probably March. I haven't seen the doctor yet. I mean, but I am sure. I took a test. I've known for a little while, but I wanted to find a better time to tell you. With — with Haymitch, and the wake and everything, it seemed like too much ….” I watch his face get even more blank as I go on and I finally stumble to a halt. He openly looks at my stomach and then back up at me, and out of the corner of my eye I see him count to five on his fingers.

He's got that look where he's waiting for things to start making sense, except without the usual hopeful tinge to it. I can't figure out what I've said wrong. I try again, “March? I think the baby will be born in March?”

Peeta's eyes widen.

I have made a horrible assumption. Desperately, I say, “Is this still something you want?”

He puts his hands over his face, but not before his expression crumples. He turns away and bows his forehead against the cabinet. He presses his hands tight to his face and nods. I suddenly find my breath has gone from shallow to a gust of relief. 

When he looks back at me, and reaches for my hand, his face is alight and his eyes have welled up. “Next March.”

“Yes. What …?”

“I just —” He's still got his other hand over his mouth and he's grinning against his fingers. “This is something _you_ want?”

I feel a sheepish smile on my own face. “Yeah. Decided I do.”

He tugs me to him. I swing my leg over the bench and scoot into his lap. “I didn't really think you would,” he says into my hair.

“Well. It crept up on me.” I lean back abruptly so I can see him. “It wasn't on purpose. We goofed something up.”

“If you're okay with that, I'm okay with that.” He takes my hands. “Honestly, you feel like we can manage this? Raising a baby?” His voice shakes a little as he says it.

“Together? Yes.” 

I nuzzle back into his shoulder. He smoothes his hands over me, wondering, comforting.

“You are life itself,” he murmurs.

I shake my head. “No. Maybe with you.”

He smiles into my hair. “This will be good.”


End file.
